DaveScot has never seriously doubted descent with modification from a common ancestor. The most he's ever said against it is that common descent is logically indistinguishable from common design. That's a fact for anyone with a logical bone in their body. There is no test that can discriminate between common descent in the past and the actions of one or more bearded thundererers in the sky creating lifeforms ex nihilo using a common template. That said our friend Davey has many times stated that the evidence for common descent is compelling and never once said there's shred of evidence for common design.

When i referred to DaveScot as a posterboy for ID....i didnt mean DaveScot personally...I was referring to people with the same characteristics as DaveScot.....

ID would love to flaunt agnostic, non-ignorant believers

Of course you may quote me....but please try to keep things in context....

Do you know why common descent and common design resemble each other so much? Because they are the same thing. The difference is purely theological. Common design posits a very active theistic God. Common descent avoids making a comment about God.

It is just a case of atheism/deism vs theism

I dont really see the scientific implications of a theistic system that is completely undistinguishable from an atheistic/deistic system.

Looks like Orville Johnson is giving his 56K modem (or his anonymous proxy) a workout. †But he is incorrect about DaveScot's views on common descent. †On December 23, I asked Dave (based on a prior comment of his):

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Iím confused. I thought, based on your front-loaded panspermia idea, that you accepted common descent. Or are you agnostic on the issue?

DaveScot replied:

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Iím agnostic regarding common descent vs. common design. How can one distinguish between the two?

I have been keeping pretty close tabs on this guy Davison. He runs a hilarious blog with over 400 posts on it. He doesn't know how to run it right but he is getting out some pretty sensible stuff if you ask me. He keeps tossing out these unanswered challenges and then raises #### when nobody responds to them. I can't say as I blame him. He invited everybody in the evolutionary world to write essays on their version of the mechanisms for evolution. When nobody showed he went ballistic and accused them of all kinds of things. You can't really blame him. You have to remember this guy is no spring chicken either. I think he is 76 or 77 now and still publishing. He writes darn well too if I do say so myself. I don't understand why the Darwinians don't take this guy on and show him to be wrong I really don't. He really has the hots for Dawkins and I understand he invited Dawkins, Ruse, Johnson, and Denton and everybody else all to participate in some kind of a contest or tournament of some sort by sending in essays on their version of evolution. Apparently nobody showed. No wonder the old guy is a little cranky. I would be too to tell you the truth. Why don't you fellows here at Panda's Thumb arrange a debate between Dawkins and Davison? I think it would be hoot but judging from the way this guy is being ignored I doubt if Dawkins or anybody else for that matter would show up. He claims they are afraid of him and Broom, Berg, Goldschmidtt, Schindewolf, Grasse, Bateson and a bunch others. I don't even know who these guys are but he sure thinks the world of them and he's constantly quoting them. Apparently none of them are Darwinians.

By ignoring him you run the risk of possibly ending up with a lot of egg on a lot of faces as I see it. But what do I know? I'm just retired orthopedic surgeon with nothing else to do. Keep in touch.

In looking at Davison's "manifesto", I personally found some reasons for concern about the validity of various points. Since I have long heard similar claims about chromosomal rearrangement and speciation, the claimed novelty of Davison's hypothesis seems more hype than substance. There seems to be a lot of textual interpretation within the work which purports significance in the real world. Quotations seem to be treated much as "proof-texts" are in apologetics. Many of his claims about what "Darwinism" must entail are arguable, and some are simply wrong. I think that in Davison's particular case, he might hold a correct position with regard to speciation events being often due to chromosomal rearrangement without having grounded his other corollaries in much besides his personal prejudices, buttressed with some quotes from others having congruent prejudices.

First of all it is Dr. not Mr. Johnson if you don't mind. I've been setting bones for over 40 years now and I have a grown son doing the same thing.

Davison seems to claim that chromosome rearrangements caused all of evolution one way or another. He seems to feel that ordinary mutations have nothing to do with evolution. Actually I think he said somewhere that all they do is cause extinction. That is pretty far out I must admit but what do I know? You guys are the experts. What I can't seem to get through my head is why nobody even recognizes this man. Oh another thing that is really interesting. Davison claims he doesn't exist. I'm not kidding. He says it all the time.

I read his Manifesto a couple of years ago and he dedicated it to a bunch of people, Bateson, Grasse, Berg etc, etc. Now he keeps saying that they don't exist either. I think what he means is that the Darwinians, you guys I suppose, don't recognize him or his friends who all seem to be dead. I can't figure it out myself but I have noticed one thing. He seems to be the only one that ever mentions these people. How come is what I want to know.

He also keeps harping about how he holds some kind of record for having been banned from more forums than anyone else excpt DaveScot and this fellow Scott L. Page, whoever that is. What is really wierd is that he is really proud of having been thrown out of so many different blogs and forums. If you take a look at his blog he even mentions that and uses it as an excuse to have his own place to make comments.

As I see it his main problem is his attitude. He is really a curmudgeon, dumping on just about everybody except his heroes. He reminds me a little of Richard Dawkins. He dumps on everybody else too. That is why I think a debate between these two oddballs would be a sensation. Is there anybody there at your forum that could contact Dawkins to try to set it up? There probably both full of it if the truth were known. A rip roaring back and forth could be very interesting don't you think? I guess Davison would take on just about anybody judging from the way he keeps quoting George S. Patton. You know - War, God help me, I love it so! Whatever else he is, he's no coward that's for sure.

He reminds me a lot of the knight in Monty Python except he has one heck of a lot of pretty solid information that seems to support a lot of his wild claims. Anyhow its great fun to read his blog although it sure has slowed up lately.

I sure hope you don't delete dump as I don't mean it the way it sounds.

He reminds me a lot of the knight in Monty Python except he has one heck of a lot of pretty solid information that seems to support a lot of his wild claims.

Almost right.

He reminds me a lot of the knight in Monty Python except he has not one jot of pretty solid information that seems to support a lot of his wild claims.

That's better. Unless you would like to cite some we've missed, other than from the list of respectable but dead scientists such as:

George Mivart (English comparative anatomist) died 1 April 1900 was excommunicated by the Catholic church for suggesting separation of science from religion.

Alfred Russel Wallace (English naturalist) died 7 November 1913, suggested Herbert Spencer's phrase "survival of the fittest " to Darwin and remained a lifelong supporter of evolution.

William Bateson (English geneticist) died 8 February 1926, brought the work of Gregor Mendel to the attention of a wider audience. "Bateson had a combative, forceful personality, well suited to his self-appointed role of Mendel advocate. However, Bateson was reluctant to believe in the chromosomal theory of inheritance. He was vocally antagonistic to the idea and it wasn't until 1922 after a visit to Thomas Hunt Morgan's fly lab that he publicly accepted chromosomes and their role in heredity." From http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/

Henry Fairfield Osborn (American paleontologist) died 6 November 1935. From 1891 was associated with the American Museum of Natural History and established one of the foremost collections of fossils. His name has been linked to the idea of "orthogenesis"

Robert Broom (Scottish paleontologist, but spent his working life in South Africa) died 6 April 1951. Had a distinguished career searching for and studying hominid fossils.

First of all it is Dr. not Mr. Johnson if you don't mind. I've been setting bones for over 40 years now and I have a grown son doing the same thing.

I know dozens of ph.D's and M.D.'s and in all my days, I have only known one who requested to be called Dr. She taught at Lake City Community College in Florida, and her doctorate was in Creative Writing.

Either O. Johnson is lying about being a doctor, or he's pretty insecure.

If common descent cannot be logically distinguished from common design the only position one may take on it is to be agnostic. One may have a preference for one or the other based on various factors but one cannot completely rule out either.

Feel free to describe a test which can distinguish between common descent in the past and one or more deities in the past creating various organisms ex nihilo working from a common template.

There is some other person posting as O. Johnson and I am going to ignore him. I recommend you do the same thing. I don't know what kind of a forum you are running here but you sure don't have much in the way of security. I came here to give you guys some advice about this Davison chap. It looks to me like you aren't interested which suits me fine. Alan Fox seems to have visited Wikipedia or some other stupid source and insists on avoiding the issues with Davison. So does everybody else here as near as I can tell. I am not impressed with the way Panda's Thumb reacts to criticism. Neither is my wife who is a professional biology teacher. If all you are going to do is throw rocks at him, you don't need me. Have a nice day

Gods-of-the-gaps (or creators-of-the-gaps, or intelligent-designers-of-the-gaps, and so on) can fit any evidence. There's never any way in which their existence can be distinguished from their non-existence. It follows that there are no meaningful statements which can be derived from asserting their existence - it makes absolutely no difference.

If you're an educated man, Mr. Davidson, and your wife is a professional biology teacher, perhaps you could explain to us how the Principle of Parsimony applies to the concept of an entity that has no explanatory power.

You sure will wait Mr. Caledonian because I'm out of this place until I see some sign of rational exchange. I don't know who this other bozo is who is impersonating me but this is the most bizarre example of a forum I have ever seen. Any fool can see there are two O. Johnsons posting here. Once you get that straightened out I may have more to add but I doubt it. Bye now.

Could you direct me to the posts that allegedly came from someone else, Mr. Johnson? I've examined the profiles from all of the "O. Johnson" posts I can find, and they all show that they came from an account created on Jan. 23 2006, at 16:24 forum time.

This seems to suggest that all of those posts came from a single account. I would be most interested to examine posts with that name but originated from a different account.

There is some other person posting as O. Johnson and I am going to ignore him. I recommend you do the same thing. I don't know what kind of a forum you are running here but you sure don't have much in the way of security. I came here to give you guys some advice about this Davison chap. It looks to me like you aren't interested which suits me fine. Alan Fox seems to have visited Wikipedia or some other stupid source and insists on avoiding the issues with Davison. So does everybody else here as near as I can tell. I am not impressed with the way Panda's Thumb reacts to criticism. Neither is my wife who is a professional biology teacher. If all you are going to do is throw rocks at him, you don't need me. Have a nice day

How do you like those malted milk balls, John?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Im completely lost....is he claiming that somebody hijacked his account? †Or is he claiming that someone is knocking off his account?

Working theory: all of the 'O. Johnson' posts in fact come from John Davison, who clearly has WAY too much time on his hands.

How do you like them golden delicious apples?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I think we have a winner. There seem to be at least two people who have dusted off their modems and are posting via dialup to evade IP banning, since the IP addresses differ from comment to comment and are from at least two different Class A IP address spaces. A password account system is not able to distinguish between two different people who share a password between themselves.

OK, it looks like the trolls want to play whack-a-mole. Send a PM if you'd like to help me out with clearing out the comments as they come up.

Please, John: see your doctor first thing Monday morning and have him double your dosage. For all of our sakes.

How do you like them stuffed bell peppers?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I think we have a winner. There seem to be at least two people who have dusted off their modems and are posting via dialup to evade IP banning, since the IP addresses differ from comment to comment and are from at least two different Class A IP address spaces. A password account system is not able to distinguish between two different people who share a password between themselves.

OK, it looks like the trolls want to play whack-a-mole. Send a PM if you'd like to help me out with clearing out the comments as they come up.

I don't think that all their comments should be removed. I may be fun to destroy their arguments. I agree that it's not easy to make the difference between arguments and insults in their posts.

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The question Mivart asked was "How can natural selection possibly affect a structure that has not yet appeared?" The answer is it can't because natural selection never had anything to do with evolution any way and neither did sexual reproduction

No, the answer is it can't because natural selection doesn't produce new structures, mutations do.

Jeez, this one was easy. †BTW, what is your scientific theory regarding the apparition of new structures?

I don't think that all their comments should be removed. I may be fun to destroy their arguments. I agree that it's not easy to make the difference between arguments and insults in their posts.

I would not call their latest postings 'arguments' so much as attacks of Tourette's syndrome.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus